WASHINGTON: Intelsat has acquired the PacAmTel teleport, located outside Los Angeles, California, in a bid to assemble a worldwide terrestrial infrastructure and strengthen its global satellite fleet.

The new teleport, to be known as Riverside Teleport, has terrestrial links to one of the US West Coast's major telecom point of presence (PoP) - the Meet Me Room (MMR) at One Wilshire in Los Angeles, where a community of service providers interconnect, says a company release.

Intelsat hopes that Riverside will be one of the several key ground facilities utilised in Intelsat's GlobalConnexSM Solutions, a new portfolio of hybrid services that combines Intelsat's global satellite fleet with terrestrial capabilities. GlobalConnexSM Solutions is already delivering end-to-end voice, data, Internet and video solutions efficiently and reliably to customers around the world.

"A teleport at this location makes good business sense for Intelsat because it can operate with satellites in both the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean regions," says Intelsat Global Service Corporation, President and Chief Operating Officer Ramu Potarazu."With this facility on the West Coast of the US, we will have a complete network for end-to-end services to, from and within, the Americas", he adds.

Intelsat's worldwide end-to-end network now consists of teleports in California, Fuchsstadt, Germany and Clarksburg, Maryland, as well as fiber interconnected PoPs in Los Angeles, New York, Frankfurt and London. It offers telephony, corporate network, video and Internet solutions around the globe via capacity on 24 geosynchronous satellites in prime orbital locations, claims the company.